Cheryl's Zen Picnic

So here I am with Cheryl under a tree. We’re sitting on the riverbank, in my backyard by the white oak tree. I haven’t been here in years. She hasn’t been ever. How could she? We haven’t met in person until I picked her up at O’Hare and we drove down here. You see she got me listening to this calming music, and I invited her over for an American picnic in the calmest place that I know.

I think she might have been surprised at how flat and open Illinois is compared to the part of England where she hails from. It looks especially open this time of year with all the empty cornfields waiting. As we drove by in my little car, I told her stories about what it was like growing up here. She told me stories about what it was like growing up there.

The two-hours in the car went by in no time at all. In no time at all, we were putting a large red, blue and yellow plaid blanket on the riverbank in my backyard by the old white oak tree, setting up lunch for Cheryl’s Zen Picnic.

It’s not spectacularly beautiful in my old backyard at this time of year—even though I’ve managed to push the weather to early spring. Okay well, it is to me, but I can understand why others wouldn’t think so. The sky isn’t as blue as some might think it should be. The grass isn’t as green as some might say it should grow. But we have a blanket, some food, and plenty of wine, Cheryl’s music on the CD player whenever we want, and big pillows for leaning back on.

We really can’t tell when the music’s on or off, that’s how peaceful the riverbank is and how calming the company is too. Maybe it has something to do with leaning back on big pillows to look up through the trees at the sky, like a couple of kids with nothing to do. It’s nice having all of the time in the world, here on a Zen picnic with Cheryl waiting for you to join us, on the riverbank in my backyard by the big white oak tree.

We have plenty of food, wine, and room on the blanket, and pillows for leaning back to look up at the sky.

—me strauss Letting me be

The Genius that Is You

If it hasn’t yet, sometime it will happen.

Life is being life. Time is passing. Then snap, tug. Someone or something will pull the rug out from under you.

Blindsided. Unexpected. The floor’s gone and the ground went with it. Unless your world is perfectly balanced—whose is perfectly balanced?—you find yourself like Alice falling to places unknown. Suddenly life is not the same. Time slows. It slows, almost stopping. You try to make sense of it, but nothing’s there. Nothing’s there. Your brain is a blank. You almost aren’t there. You are numb. Questions assault you. Answers watch.

You’re still aware that 2 follows 1, but aren’t sure who you see when you look in the mirror. If your world wasn’t real, maybe you weren’t real either. It’s the personal equivalent of finding out the world’s not round or the sky’s not blue. You’d be knocked on your ass, but the ground went away with the rug where you once stood.

You carve a cave out of rock and nail a new rug to the floor. You let friends come to visit, but only one at a time.

Wrapped in a blanket for comfort, you don’t want to hide, but you know you won’t make it, if you get knocked down one more time. That’s okay. Safety’s healing medicine to a hurt spirit. Build a fire. Warm your heart. Tend your bruises. Find space for breathing. Get some sleep and dream of stars. Let the angels keep watch outside.

Soon enough—I hope it’s soon—you’ll find your feet. You see you still have hands. Thoughts in your head will be ones of wisdom. Sunshine will call you to go outside, to pick one wildflower, to breathe the air. For one split second, you’ll take a peek up at the sky.

It will be so very bright, and light, and brilliant blue. You’ll know more than you ever knew before that the world is round.

You’ll know your feet, your hands, your head are all your own. You’ll feel your confidence in your bloodstream and start thinking that it might be fun to take a risk. You’ll look back through time and see so many things about you that were damn brilliant before that sad, old rug took a dive. You’ll be determined that you’ll have back every part of you, every bit you’d set aside.

That’s when the galaxy will breathe a silent sigh of relief, a whispering wind like angelsong. Joy will travel from star to star, from leaf to leaf. The universe has been waiting, wishing for you. You have been missed. The world needs you.

Genius is misunderstood and mistreated.

Each of us brings uniqueness, genius, to the world.

If you didn’t come back, we would always miss the genius that is you.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: The 65th Wins Movie Role as Invisible Crayon

This Just In from The 65th Crayon:

When he first heard of it, the 65th Crayon wasn’t sure that he agreed a remake of the Movie “The Invisible Man,” was warranted. A journalist and reader, our colorful reporter felt that the book by H.G. Wells should be the preferred way of learning the story of the tale of the scientist who experiments on himself.

Though he speaks highly of the 1933 film staring Claude Rains and Gloria Stuart, our literary friend, who might be mistaken for Dashiell Hammett’s,The Thin Man, has a rainbow of expletives for movies that have come out since then, and harsh word for attempts to turn the classic work into a series on cable TV.

“Hollywood caught my attention,” the 65th Crayon said. “When they said the story would be a metaphor told about crayons and asked me to take the lead role. It seems my friend, the legendary Mr. Potato Head is producing the remake called The Invisible Crayon.”

In the new suspense thriller a waxy, young scientist who experiments on himself discovers the secret of invisibility. Keeping true to the original, the crayon is unable to reverse his work and eventually goes insane, leaving cruelty and chaos in his path.

“It will be a stretch for me. I hope I don’t get taller,” the good-natured reporter confided. “But The Big Spud is betting on me, and I can’t let him down. So I’m going for it.” He shared this picture of himself on the set in full invisibility make up with sunglasses on.

“The movie is set to release whenever they’re done filming it. That’s how those Hollywood people do things.” Those were the crayon’s last words as he tied his trench coat and walked off into the sunset.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: School Makes Money from cardboard

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Scribbles Reports by The 65th Crayon appear Sundays in Letting me be ...
The 65th Crayon is a copyright of ME Strauss. All Rights Reserved

The Question in the Sky

That morning I got an email from a friend up the road. It said “Quick look out the window! The horizon’s on fire!” I turned from my computer, and my early-rising friend’s urgent message was justified. What I saw was indeed what she had described.

The sky was ablaze with an orange light that shook my eyes and stopped my breath.

One wouldn’t think that such an orange would be found in a sky that was usually blue. But nature knows the nuances and mysteries of color that paint a sky with splendor and subtly that hold us in sway. The simple gauzy clouds that attended the fire like whiffs of smoke seemed more important because they were so slight. They hung in a line to the left of the brightest light, moving so slowly they appeared to be as still as I was, standing stunned staring out the window.

That’s where I saw it—the question mark. Unmistakably, it was a question mark shaped from the misty clouds drawn from the fiery light. The shape was large as if made by my father’s European hand with a squared top and a squat bottom above a squared dot. It stole my eyes like some ancient omen or modern horoscope. It was cloud writing. Was the sky talking to me? Was I talking to the sky?

I was mesmerized. Despite the bright glow, the color all around it, that mark held my attention until I watched the shape slowly change, fade back, and vanish. It resolved itself to become part of the larger sunrise. Gone was the question to join the sky.

Later that afternoon, the question that had been on my mind for days had resolved itself as well.

I’ve never been one to believe in omens or horoscopes.
I’ve never been one to believe in coincidences or freak accidents.
I believe in synchronicity, happenstance, and the beauty of a sunrise.

I wonder whether my father’s hand wrote that question mark in the sky?

—me strauss Letting me be

The Stars Will Take Me

In a piazza across the world, I sat at a table near the Adriatic. I sipped a cappuccino and thought gentle thoughts. No one knew me. I could be who I wanted. I like the freedom of that. I relaxed and watched blue lights in the concrete shine up to the sky. I still see them, set three feet by three feet apart flush in rows of arcs around a statue. They threw their light up to meet the stars that threw starlight down in a glance.

My hotel was next to me and quiet. The water was soundless, silent. A young priest floated by in a cassock followed by a crowd of children and a dog sniffing out stray food. People were strolling and talking. Some were dining at the al fresco restaurant across the piazza. A mother and child played with a large blue ball, which irritated an old lady when it rolled to her feet under the table in the al fresco restaurant. The child, a boy, went scrambling after it. That’s probably what irritated her most.

Some people were leaving shops that were closing. I wondered about the families or friends that they might or might not be going to meet. They didn’t notice me or my journal, or where I sat sipping my cappuccino. I noticed them, though, and I could tell that they lived near. I felt as if I had fallen into a movie where everyone had a life.

There was music in the air too, but they all missed it. Even the waiter who brought my new cappuccino, who laughed with me in the warm joy of a clear summer night, even he didn’t hear it. It was the music playing from the radio in my dad’s car years ago. It was a song that my friend and I had sung so, so many times. I could see the state park where the car was sitting as clearly as the cranky, old lady in the al fresco restaurant across the piazza.

No matter where in the world I might go, when I need them to, the stars always will take me home.

—me strauss Letting me be

The Electric Army Butterfly Effect

I have a wild streak in me. It’s like what you might see if someone put wildfire and electricity behind my eyes. It doesn’t show up much these days—only when people tell me what to do, or what I like, or worst of all, what I think. Then my brain fires a streak of electricity too wild, too proud, and too fast to catch, too hot to change. The electric army comes to my unstoppable defense. It is the ultimate no.

I will not, cannot, change how I think.

About three years ago, a friend suggested that I try an activity he thought I might really enjoy. He wasn’t sure I’d like it. Yet he seemed to think I might. Though he brought up the subject quite in passing, hardly even mentioning it, I knew this friend as one who sees the world quite crisply and clearly and quite in his own way.

I think back now and realize that I hardly even listened before my thinking brain had my answer, reasons—why I wouldn’t be interested, why the activity didn’t make sense, why I didn’t have time, why it wasn’t for me.

Then last summer another friend, who has never pushed me to do anything, asked me if I would, for a favor, check out the same activity. I said, of course I would, and in a few days I was totally involved and having the time of my life. My second friend worried that she had gotten me addicted to something, I think. I was having such fun. The activity was almost something I was born to do. I was wishing I’d started years sooner.

I’d all but forgotten the first conversation, until my first friend mentioned it. “You were right,” I said. “I wished I had listened.”

I’ve been thinking on that. I had put my first friend in a box. I’d always thought that was a thing other people do, not me, and yet, I had put him in a box.I’d filtered what he said based on the box I'd put him in. I hate it when people decide what I think, but in essence that's what I'd done to him.

If I had listened with an open mind, I would have started having fun back then. I’d be pretty good by now. I might have made choices based on how good I got. Who knows how my life might be changed? That choice not to listen may have been an important decision. Who knows where I'd be or what I might be doing right now?

It’s the electric army butterfly effect.

I wonder how many times that electric streak, protecting my right to think what I think has caused me to decide what other people think?

—me strauss Letting me be

A Patchwork of People

In five minutes time, I could tell you a story. You’d hear the experience of my mother, tucked inside a generous and clever wink from my dad. There would be the dazzle and charm of my younger, older brother. While the whole time, part of me would stand aside watching you react, watching just as I used to see my older, older brother do. A few of my closest friends would probably have cameo roles. They might even contribute a line here and there.

The whole time it would appear that you were seeing me.

You would be. That’s the way I tell stories.

I wonder if other folks are a patchwork of people too.

—me strauss Letting me be

The First Sunrise

Every morning when I rise, I make the coffee, turn on the computer, and open the blinds though it’s still dark. I get to work with one eye waiting, knowing I'll stop to watch the sunrise. But this is Chicago and it's winter, and the clouds have stolen the sun. The sky is gray over the lake water. So each morning I still wait fruitlessly.

Heaven knows I need a sunrise. My world has been so cold. A sunrise would mean so much to these hungry eyes. I need the sun to warm my soul. Heaven knows. I believe that heaven knows.

I'm more patient than most people are, when I have reason to be. Though I'm not much for waiting when I have another choice. I’ve always been told that Heaven helps those who help themselves. So tonight I'll make my own sunrise. Then tomorrow morning, it will be mine. I'll have it all over again to share with everyone whenever anyone is in need.

I’ve always been able to dream lucidly—to see mental images while I'm awake. I close my eyes, still my mind, and wait for them. I hear the low tones of an Irish horn, an oboe, a choir singing, an angelic voice. My mind becomes the stardust it is made of, and I see through to the universe. I slide through my eyes on that voice, that beautiful sound, into the newest, darkest silent night—silent, yet there's music inside me softly playing.

This is the night before there was a sun, before there were people, planets, broken hearts, or broken dreams. This is the night before time began, before there was anything. This is the always was that is part of always was and always will be. Heaven and the universe are one. There are no lines drawn between. This is all emotions and all thinking as one soul, one being.

Heaven knows.

Heaven knows that we will be. Heaven knows that we will love and that we will hurt. Heaven knows that we will fight and that we will long for peace. Heaven knows that we will cry under gray skies and that we will need the sun to rise. Heaven knows that I am here.

Heaven knows.

With a tiny sound like a smile the night shifts over just a bit, and what starts with just a faint blue glimmer grows into a shining glint. The music becomes organs and violins. Then a tambourine begins as the choir sings passionately. The sky cracks and breaks into a laugh, and then bangs into drumbeats of moving graceful quasar color—stars and gases and cosmic dust—that emblazons all that exists. It cannot be anything but a gift, an embrace of creation, an artist’s final, flourish on the perfect piece of infinite glory. Every spark of stardust that I am reverberates with sound and feeling.

The first sunrise is happening here before me, around me, inside me.

Now I have its sound and color forever in my heart to keep me warm.

Oh how heaven helps the ones who help themselves.

Now I know that I am here.

—me strauss Letting me be

Detailing Things

Some people say the Devil is in the details. Some folks say that you will find God there. You might find me playing in the details. But run if you find too many details playing around me.

I know there are many values in the details. I know that anything done well has beautiful detailed touches in place, put there with cleverness, emotional thought, and a lightness of care. But I am a big-picture thinker, learner, seer. I need the 30,000 foot view before I zoom in. Make me start on the ground with the details around me and 1000 mosquitoes take residence in my brain.

Some people can start with 1000 pieces and build a puzzle from them. I can too. I can do that—if all of the pieces belong to the same puzzle, and if that is the only thing that this brain has to do. It’s a luxury of time and a wonder of fun when such opportunities come my way.

More often what happens is 2000 details present themselves in small bunches, each from different puzzles, every one interrupting at different points during my day, until the buzz in my head turns to the chaotic sound that makes me wish for, long for, yearn for—actually start humming the summertime song of the cicadas. Cicadas might be loud, but at least there’s a rhythm, a big-picture to the sound.Yet even with that trick with the rising in and out buzzing soon, I’m soon wondering louder and louder, how do you tell a bunch of details to be quiet and sit down?

When I have the big picture, the vision, the puzzle in my head, I can herd details with the best of them. I’m like a cowhand with cattle. I can list them, sort them, move them on. I can order and prioritize them. I know which details are relevant and which I can leave behind. I can decide which to add, which will bring out the artfulness and which are gauche and unsightly. I can sing the theme song to the old TV show "Rawhide." But hide that big view from me, and my horse is gone. They’re no longer details. They become a stampede.

Not everyone’s head works like mine. This I know and fully accept. That’s why I say it publicly so that when my head goes on DEFCON FIVE BRAIN OVERLOAD, hopefully folks will understand that I can take the most colossal catastrophe you might throw at me with grace, agility, and charm.

The tiniest detail, on the other hand, just might turn me into mush on the floor.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: School Makes Money from cardboard

This Just In From the 65th Crayon
The 65th Crayon took the Indiana Skyway from Chicago to Gary, Indiana this week to visit a school that has found a way to make money from cardboard.

"What they do is collect boxtops, as many as they can--bags and bags of them. Then the school sends them in to the corporation who makes the product. Usually the corporation sends back a check for what amounts to ten cents American per boxtop. That's a donation to be proud of." said our Crayon reporter friend in almost amazement. "That's exponentially higher than any crayon has ever been paid for any thing.

The story had gone around the world and come back again before The 65th Crayon was brought in on it. Chepner had contacted England--a Ms. Cheryl Mad Baggage who said, "Isn't this how it always works the schools who need money can't afford to purchase the product that will give them the boxtops they need to take advantage of this deal."

A crayon choir in between sets at a concert in Zimbabwe sang their response to him, "hmmmm It's a good thing they don't want crayon wrappers, or young crayons would be going naked to school. La La La"

Meanwhile, Fineartist was busy designing new boxtops in hopes that her efforts would convince the corporation involved to raise the ante. And Zilla at Zilla's Boardinghouse was contemplating a free bed and breakfast weekend for two to anyone who managed to provide $10,000 equivalent in boxtops for Chepner's Mom's School.

"I'm really impressed that people all over the world are getting involved with this," said our colorful reporter. "I was beginning to think only crayons had hearts. And this time as our young reporter walked off into the sunset. I distinctly saw a smile on this face.

For information on how you might help Chepner visit the links by clicking on this image.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: Google Doesn't Do Search on Silly Putty

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Scribbles Reports by The 65th Crayon appear Sundays in Letting me be ...
The 65th Crayon is a copyright of ME Strauss. All Rights Reserved

Unexpected Company

When a friend comes to Chicago unexpectedly, I just have to stop what I’m doing and get out the wine, and the cheese if we have any. She’ll be here soon. We’ll sit by the window. We’ll look out at the lake and speak of times past, when we were younger, quicker, unwiser. Or maybe when she arrives from the airport, she’d rather go to a fabulous restaurant. She does like her fine dining. Well okay, so do I.

Either way we will talk of our sons, and the world, financial markets, parents, and why people are so difficult to be with—and not easy like we are. It will be fun, emotional, and quite a relief to realize that we’re still human—and still alive. Then soon enough tomorrow will come, and we’ll be back living our lives again. We’ll be filled up with memories we talked about and those that we didn’t need to, because they came flooding in as soon as we saw each other. That’s what friends do. They give me back the me I left in their safekeeping while we were apart.

An unexpected night in Chicago with a friend is always worth giving up what I was going to do—what could possibly compete?

—me strauss Letting me be

If I Could Pick

When I was little, I learned the rule about who gets to pick. It’s simple. It goes like this. I get to pick for me, and you get to pick for you. When there’s company—visitors—sometimes they get to pick for everyone, but that’s a courtesy, a way to say, “We’re glad you came to our home.”

I’m not sure why so many people are confused about this simple rule, but some people seem to think they get to pick when it’s definitely clear, that it’s not their turn.

“You know, you’re getting to an age where you should really get a shorter hairstyle.”
“Why thank you for saying that, but I’m fine with my hair, just fine with the way it is.
“Seriously, long hair is a much younger woman’s style.”
“Lady, put a sock in it. It’s my hair. You don’t get to pick.”

In my family we knew this rule really well. Maybe in other families this rule somehow got itself bent.

“You should try to do more socializing. Go out more. Have friends over. If you don’t invite people to your home, they will never invite you.”

“Hey there, Miss Interested, with all your friends. Look in a mirror, before you go out. That person there. That’s who you get to pick for. I'm not in that mirror. I don’t want or need to go out every night. Here is the hard truth. I’m the one who gets to pick for me, Clueless, I get to pick my life, not you.”

Lately I must admit an urge to break the rule has come over me. I’ve been wishing that I could win a pick, just one pick for more than my life—nothing big or impossible like world peace, mind you—but who knows this little pick might help out a little bit there too. My pick would be to mandate a nap everyday for every American in all 50 states. We wouldn’t have to sleep. Who could make someone sleep?

Still everyone would have to go somewhere quiet every afternoon for at least 20 minutes, alone with no toys—no TV, no computer, no Ipod, no phone. All toys would be off so we might give our minds a rest. With rested minds maybe our hearts and souls would have a chance to recharge. Maybe our spirits would wire all three back together. Maybe we would start to feel whole after a while. At the very least maybe then, we could use airplanes, or elevators, or restrooms without talking on cell phones.

There could be special dispensations for weekends or for when friends were in town, but otherwise, I think to miss naptime we should have to have a note from ourselves saying why we can’t be there.

I know I don’t get to pick whether every American spends every day getting some time alone. I just keep thinking if we did, we might not be so stressed. At least we’d put away our computers and cell phones for that little while. Some of us might figure out how to meditate or to pray.

Maybe then we wouldn’t look like people who are afraid to be alone.

—me strauss Letting me be

Goin' Fishin'

When I was three, or four, or five, long before I ever heard of Disneyland or amusement parks, we would go to carnivals and church bazaars, and town homecomings. Each offered things to do. They had games to make little girls’ eyes light up and to make daddies smile and spend more quarters.

Sometimes there were carousels with wild horses that offered a friendly face each time I made it round to where my mom was. Sometimes there were cars—just my size—that I could pretend to drive around a circle. Once my dad even arranged for me to ride on a real elephant when we were at the circus. Gosh it was high up there, really high up there and swaying.

At carnivals and such I could usually find floating ducks to pull out of the water to get a prize. My brothers would try to knock down bottles stacked at the back of some tent and fail miserably. They’d always laugh at each other. There used to be a game where I could watch. A white mouse would run around a spinning circle to find a colored hole to hide inside. The ones who picked that color won a prize. I didn’t see who won. I was watching where the mouse went. I always wondered where he hid underneath that spinning circle.

The big kids games were too amazing and confusing for me. I didn’t think the mouse liked them either.
There was one game, though, that I could count on being there at almost every event, even at the grade school Turkey dinner—Goin’ Fishin’

This ubiquitous little tradition was easy for everyone. All it took was a long stick, a clothespin, some string, mixed prizes that you could buy 100 for next to nothing, and a hanging curtain that you borrowed from the people down the street, who had one laying around in their attic.

Boyhowdy, it was so easy to set up a Goin’ Fishin’ Game that my best friend, Craig, and I did it when we were seven in my basement one time for our whole neighborhood. We were Jr. Entrepreneurs. I think we made $7. 25 from it. It’s a wonder that some kid’s parents didn’t complain about the prizes we gave. It’s a wonder that my younger, older brother didn’t complain about the prizes either. I bet most of them came from his junk drawer—that’s where the family treasures were. At least they were the family treasures to me.

The game was simple. That’s why I liked it. A person would sit behind the curtain with the prizes, and another would stand in front with the fishing line—the string attached to the stick, the clothespin attached to the string.. The child, that’s me, who played the game, would hand over the cost to go fishing, and the game would begin.

The person in front would hand the stick to the me and throw the string over the curtain. The one in back would attach a prize to the clothespin on the string. A tug would pull on the line, like a fish might do. Then I would hear, “You’ve caught a fish!” With a smile, I’d very carefully pull back the string to find out what my surprise might be. It was always small, but it was always good.

That’s why I liked Goin’ Fishin’.

There was always a surprise. It was always small, but it was always good.

Wouldn’t it be nice, if life could work like that?

I might just put out a sign that says, “If you need me tomorrow, I’m sorry. I’m goin’ fishin’.”

—me strauss Letting me be

The Folks, Ah the Folks

I’ve seen it happen many times. Unsuspecting souls come to Chicago in those few short hours we call Spring, and fall hopelessly in love—sometimes with the city and each other—but always with the city. How could they not? Chicago when the green’s beginning has everything to match the Paris that they sing about. Chicago folks won’t look down their noses when you ask them to show you the simplest thing. A city’s not much, if you don’t like the folks who live there.

It seems that spring visitors meet one Chicagoan who shows them around. They end up in any of a million neighborhood restaurants or bars, and in minutes everyone there knows their names, where they’re from, who they are. Depending on the end of town, someone carefully explains why the Sox or the Cubs are ones everyone loves, and someone else chimes in with, “Hey, how ‘bout them Bears?”

It’s not the winning in Chicago. How could it be? In Chicago, it’s the folks, always the folks.

Soon enough, those poor visitors are making plans to move here. Who could resist hospitality like that?

It happens much the same to summer visitors. Sure the weather’s hot, but “cooler by the lake” is the mantra they hear. There’s so much beauty, so much people want to show them, to take them to do and experience. Visitors hardly notice the temperature that hangs like vines in the air. When they do, it’s turn a corner, and a cold beer’s waiting in a frosted glass. Did you want the Irish pub? the brassiere? the top of the Hancock for the view and champagne? or maybe down to Old Town where the Hippies still hang out, throwing peanuts on the floor? Ah, let’s do them all. Oh me, my name’s Liz. I live here.

Again new Chicagoans are coming to new homes.

Even if I try to talk them out of it, the city calls them to come on. It’s the skyline. It’s the lakeshore that goes on past what your eyes can take in. It’s the hot dogs, the pizza, the work ethic. It’s the lack of pretentiousness. Who am I kidding? It’s the folks that they meet. The folks feel like family should feel. Of course there is no deciding. They have no choice. They will come.

In autumn, the city color and the city lights are romantic, but the chill makes wise ones stay to themselves. They have a chance bundled in their woolen coats, hiding under wind-blown hair. They keep their distance. It’s reluctance. Folks in Chicago understand. No one bothers them. Fall visitors usually get to go back home.

The shock of the WINTER comes dressed in snow and white lights on the lakefront. The streets are clear, as clear as the nights. Those spring and summer Chicagoans hear the winter mantra “warmer by the lakefront,” and learn that it doesn’t mean that much to their noses or toes. They wonder how they came to be in such a cold, cold place as this. They talk about it, fret about it, while they drink hot chocolate or hot toddies with their Chicago families—the folks they can’t bear to leave.

Had they only first visited Chicago in the winter. The unsuspecting ones might have had a clearer picture to start. They would have known the city as a place before they fell in love with the people. It’s possible they would never have moved here had they met the city when it’s so much slower, almost hibernating in the snow. Instead, they got to know the city as the folks. It’s possible they’ll never leave.

I think Chicago is very much like blogging. You might think about it, and warn your friends if they want to blog. Encourage them to start in the winter, when traffic is sleepy, almost hibernating. Then they will really get a picture of blogging as it is, before they fall in love with the folks. Ah you folks. If they come in the spring, they'll get to know you right away. Then it’s possible, quite probable, they’ll never leave.

—me strauss Letting me be

Little Kids

You might think by the time that I’d reached my six-foot height, people would think I was a grown up or at least getting there. If not then, maybe when I graduated college and got a job, a light could have flickered on the idea. My mom and dad were fairly sure about it. My son’s teachers knew when he went to school that I am a full-fledged adult. Somewhere along the line, even my brothers—older, older and younger, older—begrudgingly gave up the fight to believe I am a 12-year-old kid.

But some people just have it in their heads that everyone who is not them should do as they’re told. They treat everybody like little kids. Whereas, I believe that when it comes to my life, I get to pick. I know. It’s silly of me.

I might get more of this belittling treatment than some people do because I generally overlook the behavior of difficult people. I pretend that they are my mean, old Aunt Genevieve—the nasty old witch—the one we had to be nice to when we were kids. She was our mothers’ sister and that was respect. Well, it was respect for our mothers.

These Nasty Aunt Gens are constantly telling me what I should do and what I think. They tell me I’m selfish when I don’t put them first automatically. When I don’t think their thinking because I actually know something that disproves it—I’m just complaining. If they give me something I didn’t ask for, didn’t want, and don’t need, I’m expected to gush thank yous, or deal with pouting, self-pity, and snarky, snide remarks. No reasoning, explaining, or cajoling works with these lemons. They have only three speeds—neutral, used when they sleep, showering insecure affection, and totally hurt and upset.

It’s my nature to give them a place to stand. I usually find a way to see what made them that way, like I did for my wretched old Aunt—she really was sick in the head. There was no fixing her.

But the last two Nasty Aunt Gens I’ve met have been in their twenties. They were products of too much self-esteem. They were emotional bullies. They got their own way by switching gears from aggressive to hurt to aggressive again without letting anyone else breathe. I'm old now. They tire me out. My patience is thinning—in their case, rather that than my hair.

Imagine! Little kids trying to push me around just because I’m nice. HUH! Even nice people aren’t nice all of the time. Don’t they know that?

I’m going to spend tonight watching W.C. Fields movies so I can practice one thing.

“Go away, kid. You bother me.”

I think this idea might have some potential.

Maybe not, but a girl can dream.

—me strauss Letting me be

Wondering about Crayons

My whole life I have wondered deeply and well about things that most people don’t even think about. A driving force within me needs to feel that I belong on the planet. I sensed this difference at an early age and kept most of my wondering to myself. But the silence didn’t stop my wondering. I wondered why people looked at me and what they saw. I wondered why they didn’t notice that I didn’t want them looking, and why they called me “Bashful” when I hid.

Then the Crayola™ Company introduced the box of 64 crayons. Other kids went crazy coloring. I took each crayon out of the box as if it were a jewel for a princess crown. I read its name and laid it delicately on the living room floor in front of me. No paper required for this work. I was wondering.

I wondered why red violet wasn’t called violet red, and why blue green wasn’t green blue. I wondered who decided and when it was decided, whether people had to talk about it for a long, long time. I worried at this question like a puppy pulling at a rope loose at one end, staying with it until I knew how those color names worked exactly—the strongest color comes at the end—but everyone knows that by now. I didn’t know that then. Then I had to wonder until I found out about it.

I studied laid-out crayons with intensity, moving them around one at a time, checking how many were yellow, green, or blue. I liked the purple ones. I had no time for browns. I considered how to relate the colors to each other. Did the violet blue go with the violets or with the blues? How did that impact the rest? I wondered.

I needed at least two boxes of crayons to sort them properly and I needed even more to explore the 656 other wonderings I had about the attributes of crayons. It could be months before I would be set to use them for their intended purpose—if ever. The truth be known, I’m still wondering how they make that perfect edge around the crayon's neck. Every time I hold a crayon in my hand I find myself wondering about them. I probably always will be.

I came to identify with those crayons. A box of crayons didn’t seem so different from a classroom full of first-grade kids. Each could only be defined by the few physical traits they had in common. No simple rule could place them in a line and get them to behave. The day I got that box of 64, I became the 65th crayon, born outside the box, meant to wander life wondering, hopefully meeting other 65th crayons. Maybe that’s how I got to be a first-grade teacher.

Now I explore with confidence every piece, part, and parcel of the world. Every detail of life is the stuff of color and of wonder. Each little answer makes the ground more solid as I wander around wondering about things that other people don’t even see.

I even wonder . . . what other people wonder about.

Sometimes I do color.

—me strauss Letting me be

What I've Learned

Light is creeping in as the doors that slammed shut last year open again. The breeze is starting to ruffle my hair.

New things seem to fall into place as things do when I’m on the right path. Some opportunities have followed me home unexpectedly like sweet puppies follow children from school. I’m left wondering whether I should keep them. Some have come knocking at my door—friendly knocks, nice hello-ing, and some pounding, a little jarring. All of it, a bit uprooting from the dusty gloom that had become my norm. I think I’ve spent a year in mourning in what I thought was just rebuilding.

Steve Winwood, how he turns my head still, is singing to me of how I’ll be in the high life again. I’m not sure that I believe him, though I know I’ll not be down and out. This past year has left me with plenty to think on and about. I’m not sure that I believe him, but I’m sure I believe me.

What I learned last year is that everything works backwards from how I might have once thought.

I know for sure that the faster I want to run, the slower I should walk.

The less time I have for the ones I love, the more time I should take.

When I want to hold things tightest is when I should let go . . . so they can come back.

When I most want the light on me, I should let someone else go first.

When I want anything, I am best to give everything away.

When I feel righteous, I am always wrong.

The world does not need me to make it work right.

It’s not good to be a victim, yet the best way win myself is to surrender what I think makes me special.

There is no such thing as enough gratitude, but you can be too needy.

Forgiveness, compassion, truth, and love are freeing. They make my hands open, not into fists.

Everybody cries, but not everybody cares.

Everybody yearns for things, wants to look forward to something, and needs a place to stand.

Everybody gets lost sometimes, but most of us find our way home.

What I learned this year is . . .

There still are angels everywhere and wishes still do come true.

Life is about what things are worth, not what they cost.

—me strauss Letting me be

Some Things You Just Know

I wasn’t meant to win the lottery. I can wish it, but I can’t wish it so. That part of my life I am totally sure of. Some things in life you just know.

I don’t go chasing after happiness either. Happiness is one of those things that, like fun, I most enjoy when it takes me by surprise. Often I don’t even realize that I’m having it until I breathe and see only smiles around. Sometimes I think back upon good times gone by and wonder if I knew they were that good when they were happening. My guess is probably not. I probably knew they were good, but not how good—who ever does?

When I was young, I thought a day without fireworks and big events was hardly there. That such days were just plain boring and only made to mark time until the next occasion came. Real life had spark and the sparkle. I needed the jolt that made me feel alive. Then I’d need to talk about it, to relive it to know it really happened, to know I had a life.

I suppose that my spirit’s gotten older. My hormones have settled just a bit. I’ve gladly let go of my youth for a small bit of wisdom and far fewer dragons to slay. These days a dirt path is more rewarding than the fast lane. The feedback is richer, deeper, longer, and more lasting. I’d easily trade my cell phone, my car, and the Internet, the television, my headphones, and computer for a few simpler, quieter things tonight.

Tonight I’d like to go to a cabin with a piano and a friend who’d play for me. I’d like to dance. I’d like to listen to the wind blow through the trees without the sounds of machines. I’d like to dance. I long for a stuffed chair at a wooden desk with a sharp pencil and a leather journal, under a bright lamp near a window in Virginia. I’d like to look out that window all day long at the horses, thinking, writing for hours until one whole and complete thought has a chance to form and be reformed.

I’d watch the horses graze, slow as the grass grows. Never once would I worry about keeping up with myself. Like a dancer I would lead and I would follow all at once.

It would be engaging and peaceful at the same time too. Some things in life you just know.

I just know. Tonight I’d like to go to a cabin with a piano and a friend who’d play for me.

I’d like to dance.

—me strauss Letting me be

Bartending for Bees

Moving forward
muck and mire
Not knowing how
when
what I might
step on or in
time behind me
in front
around me
everything moving
even me
where are we going
when will we stop
when we do
what happens
then
thank God
for flowers
as I pass by
l . h . g

—me strauss Letting me be

Love Now and Then

What an amazing difference
my definition of love now and then.

—me strauss Letting me be

Will You Marry Me?

“If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?” he asked.

“I’d say, ‘Yes’.”

“Does that mean we’re engaged?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You didn’t ask me to marry you. And I know what I mean when I say yes to that question, but I’m not sure that you do . . .” (What exactly was I thinking?)

“And?”

“And it’s night. People get more emotional at night. We’ve been out with your parents and had a great time. It was like being with friends, having dinner and wine. Night is romantic. So if you want to ask me to marry you do it in the daylight. Then I’ll know you mean it.”

That was Monday. And it was November and it was Chicago. Daylight ended somewhere around 4 p.m. Work ended somewhere around 5 p.m. For three nights the conversation was basically the same.

“Your dad is dying. I want him to know that you have someone who really loves you.”

“That is wonderful. I’m floating. I love you too. But I’m serious. Daylight.”

Three nights of lovely conversations. Three nights of me saying thank you and then saying, “Daylight.” I needed to believe in something harsh as the light of day. If I got married I wanted to be able to stand up in front of God and everybody and be able to say I believed in forever.

“On Friday, at 2 p.m. a massive basket of expensive flowers arrived where I worked. I had a card with “I love yous” written all over it. It was signed in all caps and the words were underlined three times. It said, “AND I STILL WANT TO MARRY YOU!”

I found a phone and dialed his office. He picked it up on the first ring. The conversation was like the rest.

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“All right!” Two voices said together.

That was 29 days after we met 23 years, 2 months, and 21 days ago.

—me strauss Letting me be

Home

Today I had a lunch date with my friend, Shining Silver. We’d planned it for a while. I was really looking forward to seeing her. We would be talking about this really cool project over lunch. I thought about how we’d laugh and toss around ideas. That kind of psychic energy, that intellectual input, her creative interaction, I was hungry for these things. I couldn’t wait to see her. Besides the project was out of my field, and I was out of my depth.

Sometimes the way you visualize things is not how they turn out.

I did my usual things this morning: coffee, insanely-early emails with insanely early-rising friends, project work that had to get done before I left, an unexpected phone call that threw a new twist into my life. It was an exciting, scary twist—the possibility of relocation again—I had faced down that kind of twist all too recently. I didn’t want to live through that mean decision again. By the time those morning tasks were done, it was time to pick up my wallet, pull on my jacket, kiss my husband, grab my keys, and head out the door.

My journey begins. I’m in my car and on the road, but these are city roads and the sky is pale white-gray not glorious blue. The buildings that hover over don’t invite me to think of joy or peace. The traffic at least makes room for me, while at the same time, ignores me too.

For some reason my music doesn’t satisfy me. I grow impatient with the CD chose—the one with the Joe Walsh Radio song. I put in a new CD, one I’ve not made friends with yet. It’s long and silly. But that’s okay, because I’m not listening anyway. I’m not thinking either. I’m driving safely, but I’m not there. I don’t know where I am. I’m on AutoLiz.

By some weird irony, my Shining Silver friend, someone I met in California, now lives one block away from a close college friend in suburban Chicago. Waves of nostalgia pour over me as I drive into a town I know well. Thoughts of those times come back, just as a song from the new CD comes on—a song about a girl with my name. It says she’s “pretty in her own way, but some people think she’s unusual in her head.” I’m driving by his house as that song is playing. It ends as I park in her driveway.

Shining Silver sees right through me. I feel it in her eyes. I should have known that this is one who wouldn’t let me pretend to play when I have things on my mind. Of course, she tried to make the project conversation work. But we both knew this "almost a good idea another time” was long past its sell by date now. She’s so positive, even compared to me, that she was still trying, long after I say that it’s not a good idea. I had to convince her I didn’t have the resources—the people or the time. She so wanted me to win.

We talked about the state of things. I told her about feelings I don’t share. If I don’t want to have these feelings, why would I give them to my friends? She helped lift my burden so that I could set it down. She found a way to build me up, and then she bought my lunch. She defines a friend.

On the drive back into the city, I put back in my favorite CD music mix. I tried to listen. I heard the sounds. I heard the music without the feelings. The sky was still so gray, the buildings uninviting in the winter light. The traffic was self-absorbed with fighting for the perfect place in line. I looked for something to catch my heart, anything to fall in love with, something I might write about. I looked, but couldn’t find it. I stopped trying soon enough. I drove.

I remember thinking only one thought somewhere nearing home. From the inside of my head I could be any age right now. That’s that only conscious thought I had. It’s the only thought I remember having.

Until I turned the last corner. . . from the south, over the high-rise on the left, the sun was shining down, directly on my building, exactly where my condo is, on my bedroom window.

Then I had my second thought. It was one word.

Home.

—me strauss Letting me be

Making Friends with Things

For decades I suffered from debilitating migraines. I learned to make friends with the pain. In essence I would make tacit agreements with it. “You stand back over there for a while and let me get this done,” I would think. “Then I’ll go home, and you can have your way with my head for the next day or two.” It was a coping mechanism that worked for me. It was a way to avoid getting nervous and making things worse.

Then I noticed that my migraines weren’t the only nonliving things that I had been making friends with. The act of negotiating that way with inanimate objects was a regular part of my life. This must be some fallout left over from the shy childhood thing, or maybe it’s how I deal with my distaste for transitions. Either way, it’s no wonder I understand why my son might make friends with his magnetic letters.

I have to make friends with my food before I start eating. Sounds silly or strange, but I can’t just “dig in.”. My plate comes with the food on it, and I have to let it sit. I scope out the plate with a surreptitious glance. I used to say I was letting the food get to the right temperature. I know that I’m really giving everyone else a head start. I eat so little and get done so quickly. I grew weary of people looking at me, saying I should eat more by the time I was seven. I learned early to make it look like I ate more than I did when I wasn’t hungry. I can move food on a plate to fool the pickiest maitre de into thinking I consumed almost everything. All of that food maneuvering turned into a relationship with any food that is served to me. “Help me out here, let’s be friends.” Food and I have a deal.

This weirdness has crept onto my desk. I’m making friends with my work.

I’ve noticed a pattern. A new project arrives, and it waits in line. I have to think about it. We haven’t been properly introduced. On day 3, it might gain a place on the corner of my desk. I can say I’m looking at it. I stare at it. It stares at me. It’s the silent nagging of a long married couple who don’t need words to know what the other is thinking. I tell myself that I am cleaning my desk so that I can concentrate on the new project. Really I’m trying to decide just where this guy fits in my work universe. If things go well, this part only lasts hours.

I finish something that gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Like Holly-Go-Lightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” I have room for one friend because one has moved on. I pick up the new project. I’m ready to get acquainted with it. I find how I might do this and imagine a way that might look. I write a few words. Things start to relate to each other. I begin to like what I see. I form an attachment.

It’s sort of like when I meet a new friend. A relationship happens. I get involved in working on the project and start enjoying myself. Work is happening. I go with the flow.

Then a completely new project comes. It sits on the corner of my desk and stares at me—for about 30 seconds. I move it to the table behind me. It’s not due until next month.

“Sorry, you’re just going to have to wait your turn,” I say, as I move it. I get back to the friend I was working with.

Don’t even ask about my relationships with little boxes and tins. My husband says they’re more like children to me.

—me strauss Letting me be

The Universe of Me

Tonight I return to a universe that I call my own. It’s as deep and wide as the Cosmos goes. It has stars, nebulas, and black holes, even galaxies. But this universe is not out there. It’s hidden deep inside. It lives behind my eyes. It’s a universe much like the other only inside out. I close my eyes and feel my self fall back into the universe of me.

The atmosphere—yes there’s one here—is thicker, more like the woody, winter forest air than the empty vacuum of outer space. I breathe it in, and I feel it. I can float in it almost like air made of the smallest particles of water, or water made of a melody—heavenly sounds. What a lovely weightless feeling stretching out inside myself. Reaching in every direction and finding no walls to hold me back is unusual, if not outright exceptional.

I float in a cloud—a soul canvas—a luxury on which to paint with light. The background is blue-black like predawn—not black like badness, black because the canvas is my inside space. It awaits. I enjoy the unending patience that holds me here. No thought interrupts. No judgment calls to bear. My soul awaits with abounding space and patience for me. It waits with peace.

On its blue-black generosity, it holds the light I am. It holds the starlight that I make.

I sit near a nursery of stars formed by a smile, a word, a thought about the beauty of creation, a flower touched to my nose, a son’s hand given, a son’s hand taken. I watch small stars being born in the feelings discovered for new friends. I float by a nebula I once imagined and wondered at. Rainbows of nebulae light my insides from times shared with like minds in laughter or in desperation, pulling with our hearts tied together. Making me realize that tears of sadness and tears of joy are made of the same stuff—just like people and stars are.

A black hole holds court in a corner. It gained its place by actions taken in haste and to this day still not made right.

Shooting stars fly by to trace deeds of a generous spirit. A word was given that took my heart along with it. Another flies for feet that were lead by my values and a spirit to higher ground. Watching is the freeing feeling of the lightness of knowing that I might be running in the right direction, knowing because my body, heart, and soul all feel as one complete and decent human being.

It’s a wonder how a universe can fit inside a single person. It would seem my skin would hold it in, but it does not. I guess that is another miracle and mystery of creation. A universe inside me that’s as broad and deep as the one outside. It’s been there behind my eyes since I was born. One day my universe will leave my body and take its light to become part of the big universe in the sky.

That is how it should be. People are stars inside out.

—me strauss Letting me be

Dorm Room Reconnaissance

I met Susie B at college orientation. It was random chance that we were roommates for the week. Next door was another Susie and her roommate Lorraine. The four of us were fast friends on learning each others’ names. By day two we decided why take chances on the next lottery? Why not go with what we had?

I’m not sure who’s idea it was, or where everyone else was either. But when others were doing what ever they were doing, we went on dorm room reconnaissance.

We scoped out every freshman dorm from door to door, floor to floor—the new high-rise dorm, the two middle-sized dorms, and the two old ones over there. First we contemplated and discussed the flexibility and décor of the dorm rooms. The ones with the bolster beds and the immovable furniture were definitely out. We needed options.

We extrapolated the distance from dormitory to classroom via each sidewalk. We calculated the average shower-to-student ratio. We figured out the noise factor based on location and estimated the most likely traffic patterns. You’d think that the four of us were going for degrees in social geography or city planning.

In the end, after all of that fun thinking through every detail, an orientation guide we met let out a tiny secret. Only one of the freshman dorms would be fit with brand new telephones in every room for the first semester. Lucky for us it was the one with the moveable furniture. We spent the next hour checking out that four storey dorm. In the end we had the information we needed—room numbers 209 and 210.

Off we went to the housing office on that hot July afternoon, with our most polite and genuine manners. We met a nice lady there who wasn’t stressed—there were hardly any students around at that time of year. We told her how nice the school was and how we looked forward to being there. We asked her about her job—what she did and whether she liked it.

I took a breath and told her that we were wondering whether we might put in a request. I described our deep reconnaissance in most meticulous detail. My friends chimed in at the appropriate times with the appropriate sounds. We said that we were hoping we might request two dorm rooms in particular so that we might live side-by-side our first year in college. I’m sure our faces were all anticipation and enthusiasm waiting for her answer.

She looked at us. She thought a moment. She looked at us again. We never once took our eyes off her. She said that it had never been done before, but since we cared so much, she couldn’t see why not.

“Mind you now. There’s no guarantee. Someone else might need those rooms.”

“We understand, Ma’am. We really do. Someone might need those rooms for some important reason.”

We waited until we were out the door, across the quad, around a corner, and miles from earshot. Then we started laughing, and talking nonstop about how cool it would be, if it really happened. Would it happen—did you think? Yeah why not? She sure was nice. So were we. It has to happen. That would be so cool if it did. I can't believe we did that. I can't believe no one ever did before.

Sure enough a few months passed. A letter came with room assignments. Those were the rooms we got. Our college days were off to a good start.

We were the only ones who had ever thought to ask.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: Google Doesn't Do Search on Silly Putty

This Just In from The 65th Crayon:

When he got the call to attend a meeting at Google headquarters, The 65th Crayon was a little perplexed. Our reporter friend hadn’t been there since he had taken them to task last fall for the problem of dlites and dlogs—fake websites and blogs set up by dogs—in the case of the invisible dog spamming the Internet.

“I thought they might be calling for a follow up report,” said our supersleuth reporter, “or I considered that they might have had some new ideas about related Adsense Words. To my surprise, it was nothing of the sort.”

At this point, our remarkable friend pulled a red plastic egg from his pocket, saying “You might not remember these. “This is the original Silly Putty egg, a toy made from the work of engineer James Wright, who was trying to invent a new kind of rubber. It became a famous toy when it was introduced on the Howdy Doody Show. Since then kids have been pulling, turning, and twisting it and of course pressing it against the newspaper to pick up pictures.

“It appears that Crayola the company that sells Silly Putty now offers it in another size—Silly Putty Bulk—and several colors. Apparently the engineers at Google decided that they needed a lot of it.”

The Google engineers tell the story quite well at the Google Blog. This image shows how they put the bulk shipment they were going to share together in a pile for a picture. Later, they couldn’t pry the Google glob apart so that each owner could claim his or her blob of the bigger glob. That’s why they had called in the 65th Crayon.

“Silly people. They thought I might be able to pull apart 250 pounds of stuck together Silly Putty. Had they used their famous search engine, they would have known,” the 65th said seriously. “You always call in the crayon expert before handling explosives or Silly Putty.”

Then in usual fashion, our reporter friend tied his trench coat belt and walked off, like Humphrey Bogart.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scribbles: A-Go A Coloring Party

For links to additional Scribbles Reports by the 65th Crayon see the sidebar.
Scribbles Reports by The 65th Crayon appear Sundays in Letting me be ...
The 65th Crayon is a copyright of ME Strauss. All Rights Reserved.

She'd Say I'm Still Outstanding

In college, my roommate and I would sit by candlelight at night and come up with analogies for life or metaphors to describe ourselves or each other. Throughout the day we left each other notes from and about famous people. Messages that would say the pope had called were popular.

“I hope you said I'm not talking to him until he changes his stance on birth control.”

So were calls from Robert Redford.

“He said to wear the black tonight.”

Leaving notes for the gremlins to clean the apartment while we were gone was another thing that we did.

“Dear Gremlins, We've gone to college. Please straighten up for our return.” The gremlins never cooperated with us. We decided that they couldn't read our writing.

During class we would write letters to each other as if it were 20 years in the future. Some people talked about movies. We would do stuff like that instead. It was all entertainment.

I guess in five years of living together, some of our traits had crossed, possibly a couple of times. Our handwriting was so similar, we actually had to read what was written to know to whom a piece of paper belonged.

Since we were in the same education program, we took classes together. Handwriting and class schedules, however, were where the similarities stopped.

We were nothing like twins. She was normal. She even had a normal name. Susie Brown. You can't get much more normal than that, unless it’s something like Ann Smith, and in degrees of normalcy that would be just a rounding error.

Susie could fit in just everywhere. She knew just what to say and what to wear. People understood her when she talked. Regular people loved her. Smart people wanted to be like her. Even sorority girls thought that she was something special. How she could be so special and so normal was a neat trick in itself. I think it was her natural sense of humor and how beautiful she was from the inside out. When I met her, I thought she was a model. I really did.

I liked her more than anyone did. Maybe because she liked me, but I think it was because she liked to play as much as I do.

Some days we would decide to hold class in our apartment, and then act surprised when no one else showed up. We would mark everyone absent. We’d literally write down all of their names in a list, including the name of the professor. We'd actually talk about the class content in our pajamas. Later that day we would walk over to the professor's office to deliver the list, shaking our heads with disapproval. God forbid, if the professor happened to be out when we stopped by. Then we would leave a note saying that the professor should start showing up for work, or we would have to quit signing his or her paychecks. We’d autograph the note and leave a big smiley face next to our names.

It became a sort of legend that you hadn’t really made it as a professor if you hadn’t had the two of us in a class together yet.

I guess the new professor would find out at the first of class when the syllabus went round and one of us would say, “Oh wow, look a Syllabus! How beautiful. I just love a new Syllabus! Don't you? And the other would answer. “You too? I keep it close me to always. Sometimes I ask the professor to autograph it at the end of the semester.”

Once when we were asked to present lessons for kindergarten, the student teaching a lesson stopped and looked at us glaring. She said firmly, "Five-year olds would never act like that!" The professor intervened shaking her head, and quietly corrected the misconception, "Actually, five-year-olds would act exactly in that manner. Do go on."

Looking back, I don't know why, beyond our playfulness, professors put up with us. Maybe they thought first grade teachers should remember what it's like to be six-years-old. Or maybe they just found the other education students so stiff and boring. I know that we sure did.

Ah, Susie Brown, if I saw you now.

I would say, “I've got 12 messages for you--one from the pope, two from the UN, nine from movie stars who need your advice about their turbulent love lives. Then I'd light a candle and say " Life is a flower, an ocean, an onion, a sunrise, a pomegranate, an airplane ride, a trip to the moon and back, a circle, a song, a manuscript, everything and nothing that you expect it to be. a hot air balloon, a rollercoaster, a video game, CandyLand acrossed with Chutes and Ladders.”

She'd say I'm still outstanding—out standing in the rain, that is. Then she'd look up in the air and point to the floor and say to me "C'mon down my friend. C'mon down and join the rest of us."

—me strauss Letting me be

A Postcard from Portugal

I don’t really think of winter as fully here until after the first of the year. That’s when the Christmas lights, ribbons and gifts, and the Christmas trees finally leave the scene. That's when I notice the absence of color and scenery that’s green, cheerful, and bright. The gray sky seems to hang over the city and all around me. I'm reminded of the long days of winter still left to go before spring, now that the celebrating has past. The new year finds me yearning for the first crocus, for the yellow ball that lights the sky, and for weathercaster to quit speaking of cabin fever.

The sky is supposed to be filled with color, and so is my life.

Time to put on my headphones and take a trip to a more suitable climate.

I’ve never been to Portugal. I’m going there tonight.

I close my eyes, and here I am on the Costa Vincentina. I feel the cool sea breeze come up the shore. I wanted to come here just because I like to say "Costa Vincentina."

The golden sunlight, the depth of blue that is the water, energize my eyes. I walk the cosmopolitan beaches, watching the people. They are as beautiful as the lush scenery. Then I realize I want to be alone. The beach is too busy for my eyes.

I find small shop for food and a place where I might rent a boat for a sail. I sail across to Ria Formosa to the peaceful islands of lagoons and canals. The boat sits in the warm water. I sit in the boat for the longest while thinking of nothing. Then I lay back with some dry bread, cheese, and wine that I got at the shop near where I rented the boat.

I recall the conversation there that was in some language we made up from signals and noises. It was the only way because neither the shopkeeper nor I knew a word of the other's primay language. Yet somehow we communicated with smiles in this beautiful climate, and I got what I needed—more than enough—goods and human interaction as well.

How nice it was to lay back in the warm boat. Warm and floating without a care–how long has it been since I’ve let myself feel like that? However long it had been, I made the most of a chance to relax? I watched the sunny day turn to late afternoon and when I brought the boat back, I sat by the sea with a glass of a wine and the last of the bread and cheese. I was rewarded with a light show that a Portugese sunset can be. I rested my being inside the color. It will be hard to leave this beautiful scene.

Some people go on vacation once a year.
People like me go somewhere whenever they need to.
Some folks live here always, and don't need to go anywhere.

—me strauss Letting me be

The One Who Inspires

When I lived in California a woman worked for me. One of her faith-based intiatives was that she visited prisons to speak with convicts every week. She told me that she ministered to them. I often would listen to her talk about it, thinking that she was so naïve. I wondered whether in truth the prisoners weren’t ministering to her instead.

This new year has brought with it a feeling of life and hope for the future. I’ve laid down the burdens of the past and walk forward letting go of what I once carried on my shoulders. I walk taller and with purpose, with more joie de vivre. I no longer cling to the rocks alongside the river, but let the water carry me. I take pride in this new way of being. I didn’t know that I did, but indeed I do. I walked into my proud feelings yesterday afternoon.

By synchronicity, a man I’d met before in passing found me again. He told me of his troubles, which sounded so much like those I’d faced and still face each day. I spoke to him of hope and how I had surrendered, let go of the shore, and embraced not knowing. He listened. He answered. We talked a while, and he went home. I felt helpless that I could not do more—that his real problems could not be fixed by my well-meaning words. Before he left I promised to look in on him last night.

I thought of this person, friend, throughout my day, of his talent and his art. I dwelled on his honesty and I breathed in his gentle calm. He has the frail strength that we call humanity and still sees so clearly what his situation means. His aura has such sadness and such acceptance. His shy farewell was beautiful. It stayed right there with me.

I wanted to take from him this burden. I wanted to give to him my hope. But for all the fluency I own, my words seemed like so many meager thoughts.

I was left standing face to face with my limits. I was not enough. I looked inside myself for more. Surely I had the answer somewhere. But when I searched deeper, I didn't find an answer for the man. I saw my humility staring back at me.

I asked Dawn to pray for him. She has a special relationship with God.

When I went to visit him last night, I read something he wrote about his abject poverty. It was compelling in it’s honesty. He spoke about how he feared the shame and cherished the freedom that it brings. He wrote of hope for humanity that seems to be growing deeper in understanding. I wanted to tell him that I heard what he was saying and that I understood. Again I searched for words and found that mine were all too small, too useless in comparison. He spoke of eating from public gardens and showed me pictures of luscious foods, bing cherries so blood red.

I tried to tell him what had worked for me, but my humility looked up at me. Who did I think I was to teach this person about anything? Sometimes God gives me the right words to say, “I think there is much I can learn from you.”

I came home to my blog and looked for something that I might send as comfort to him. That’s when I realized how good my life has really been, how bad my last year really wasn’t. I’ve never eaten from a public garden or worried whether I would eat again. I’ve never been able to, as he so eloquently said, “count out exactly how to spend all of this nothing.”

I asked a friend who had survived the cold war to look in on him too.

Today this man stopped by to see me. He spoke again of his hope for humanity, how all of us holding hands together is what the world needs. He said that talking to me is inspiring. He is the inspiring one. I am the one who should be sitting at his knee.

I will listen to his story. It will be an honor.

And we will hold hands together while he tells it.

—me strauss Letting me be

The Hidden Introvert

I said to Luke last spring that I thought it was time I went to find the hidden introvert in me. He laughed and said something about that being redundant.

Most writers are introverts by nature. I’m an extrovert. At least that’s what I’ve thought all these years. Yet events occurred last year that made me look at that assumption and reconsider what I’d taken as truth.

Maybe I’d spent a whole lot of energy trying to be an extrovert, when really I’m not. Maybe I’m an actor who’s really good at pretending to be one. After all, I was a painfully shy child, and I still think of myself as awfully self-conscious.

The best definitions of those terms I’ve come across are those of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. It says that, under stress, extroverts need to talk out their problems, while introverts need to think them through. That talking versus thinking thing could be just where I let myself get mislead. There might be other reasons why I want to talk things out . . . Perhaps the talking that I do is not the extrovert’s need to find out what I’m thinking, but the fact that I find people incomprehensible, and I need a translator in order to think things through.

I know my social skills are learned and not natural talents. Otherwise I wouldn’t get things wrong so often. I've worked too hard to get the social skills I know I've got for them to be natural. I also know that things I say sound like the words of introverts. I say things like “Life would be so much easier if no people were involved.” On the other hand, I’m saying that, not thinking it.

The extrovert things I really like all involve me being in charge of the microphone. That puts me in control of the talking.

Extroverts often think introverts are witless, because they don’t jump in a conversation with their ideas. Introverts think extroverts are intellectually frivolous, because they don’t think before they speak. Everyone has both, but prefers one over the other, especially in times of stress or important work. Still I wonder whether I’ve trained myself to work against my nature, to be an extrovert when my introvert needed more space?

Could that be why I go blind after meetings? Does that explain how cranky I get when people interrupt me constantly with stupid, little detailed things that they should be able to figure out on their own and not have to bother me with when I'm in the middle of a problem I'm trying to solve in my head? Er. Ahem.

I’m going to have to think about this.

Silly me. I thought the answer was hidden.

—me strauss Letting me be

Dollhouse Town

I lived in a neighborhood that was all boys. I didn’t play much with dolls growing up. I never had a dollhouse either. Though they always interested me, I couldn’t imagine actually playing with one. I’d enjoy going to the Art Institute in Chicago to see the elaborate room of tiny furniture. I was fascinated by the exquisite dollhouse at the end of the exhibit, but it was art not a toy—not even for dreaming about. A dollhouse was just . . . well, just too miniature. I’ve always been a top down, big-picture thinker. The world was my dollhouse, I think.

Every summer I visited a place that was a real-live dollhouse town to me. Only 1100 people lived there. The streets were wide. The lots were large. So were the houses. The cars hardly ever moved. You could walk from one side of town to the other. There were no curbs or street lights, but there was a bowling alley with six lanes, a grocery story with one register, a bank with two tellers. two churches, a grade school, and a funeral home, and lots of trees. My grandma's house had a whole apple orchard. It was small, but you would call it an orchard too I bet.

I would spend weeks with my Italian Aunt Mary, my father’s sister. Her sons were grown and gone. So she had room for me. She was the youngest and the only daughter. I was too. She cooked wonderful Italian food and served it on genuine Fiestaware. How I loved that Fiestaware, especially the pitcher that looked like the original Kool-Aid guy. It was heavy so I never worried that I would break it and it came in colors that looked like toys. I would take the bowls to the park and fill them up with sand in that dollhouse town, where I was the doll and my Aunt was the doll mother.

My Aunt Mary’s house was chocolate stucco with blown-on cut-glass overlaid that made it sparkle. The town was so roomy. You could see that house sparkle from every side at almost any time of day, even when it was raining out. No dollhouse could do that. On the inside, it was cozy there. She’d let me make my bed on the couch at night. She and Uncle Paul would watch TV while I fell asleep. I liked that part a lot, too.

When I was old enough, my summer dollhouse friends and I would walk downtown to Torri’s Ice-Cream Parlor. It’s a genuine ice-cream parlor with wrought-iron chairs and a long fountain counter. Way in the back over the doorway to the hall is a mirror that my dad made. It isn’t very big, but it fit the molding perfectly. I think was a gift for Mr. Torri. No one ever told me why. I just knew it was there for everyone to see.

Mr. Torri served cherry phosphates, and milkshakes, and made sundaes to order. We could shoose from the sign that was way up there hand-painted right on the wall over the mirror behind the counter. On the other side of the room, he had a whole case of penny candy, which today probably would cost a quarter and come in bars. But then . . . but then it was a penny a piece. We could spend hours deciding exactly how many red-hot-to-black giant jawbreakers we wanted, and how many of each other kind of candy. Mr. Torri didn’t mind. He wasn't going anywhere.

There was no stress and no busy-ness in the dollhouse town. It was real—not perfect like The Truman Show or a fake Walgreen’s Commercial. We would walk out of Torri’s Ice Cream Parlor sucking on our giant jawbreakers, taking them out every minute to see whether they were red or black while we walked down the middle of the street all six blocks back to Aunt Mary’s sparkly stucco house.

Every now and then I drive there on the spur of the moment. I take friends to show them my dollhouse town and my Aunt Mary’s sparkly stucco house. We have hot fudge sundae and cherry phosphates at Torri’s Ice-Cream Parlor. I point out the mirror over the doorway that my dad made as a gift, I think, for Mr. Torri.

And as we drive away, I tell them about my Aunt Mary’s Fiestaware that looked like the original Kool-Aid man.

—me strauss Letting me be

Written Unconditionally

People have asked how it is I could pick my self up again and again to face each day in times of adversity. I answer that I never give up on the belief that today I might find the answer. I am the resilient child. I am the one who never stops trying to get it right. I’m one of those blow up clowns. You knock me down and I bounce up—usually with a smile.

I never learned to leave a bad situation, until a better one presented itself. I never learned to say no, because forgiveness came so easily. I always made that extra room, because I knew I could get over being cramped. If someone’s luggage got lost, I prayed that it was mine. I knew that I would handle it best. I didn’t want the pain of watching someone else in distress, when I knew I could just switch into adventure mode.

So many people carry burdens of bad events for so long. The damage that they do themselves by being angry over things is confusing to me, especially when I see it in people otherwise so smart. Why do they think to hurt others will make themselves not hurt? Why don’t they know it only makes the hurting larger and more pronounced? It takes so much less energy to let people in and close to me. Yet they work so hard to keep people away and push them out.

I’ve been thinking about where my resiliency, my open heart, my faith in stars and people springs from. Two words keep answering each time the question comes—unconditional love. I am the child of a father who loved me exactly as I am. He delighted and took pride in me and wondered in my wondering. He did not indulge me. He gave to me the best he had to offer—his stories, his songs, his barrel chest to lean upon when I was lost.

And because he expected nothing in return, everything was his, and I see him in some way in everyone I meet.

I am the child of a resilient father, no question that is also true. But it is his unconditional wish for my happiness, at his expense, if that was the cost, that made me resilient, loving, and ever ready to try to get it right just one more time—for me and for him.

How could I not forgive those who’ve not experienced love unconditional? How could I not have compassion for their fault, even when they throw things at me? Their world, their thoughts, their memories are tied up in knots so small. Why should they understand or believe my motivations, if they’ve no experience with such thing? To them, I must seem to be a giant fairy tale, a smooth operator, a manipulator looking for their weakness.

Love given conditionally is not love to me.

Yet to talk of such things to people who have never known it is like trying to describe the exact shade of a color. You can only show them and hope that one day they will open their hearts enough to see. I have no choice but to try.

It's written unconditionally above my father's name, right there upon my heart.

—me strauss Letting me be

As Fireworks Fly

I step softly
as the fireworks fly
I step on the shore
heaven knows
how deep the sea
how I've held my breath
how I've surrendered
I can hear you breathe
my words are small
my eyes talk more
my eyes are wiser
they hold the stars
I wish
they wish that
every grace befall us all
warm love
childlike laughter
peace backlit with joy

—me strauss Letting me be